We're here tents all the way from here
all the way along this back fence. These
are the 10th that we have out here. Once
a homeless encampment was tense everywhere.
Now an empty field.
I mean it's it's different.
It's a different feeling.
The different atmosphere,
a place. Luke Curry.
We always here for a minute.
Used to call home. I was up in
this field for about 3-3 years.
How many people were there?
We had over like 40.
Like 42 give or take he and
others who lived here now at a
city run shelter after city crews
cleared out their encampment.
We housed everybody
in that field.
Austin has struggled to deal with
homelessness for decades for 23 years,
a public camping ban was in place.
The City Council voted to lift
the ban in 2019 and Austinites
voted to reinstate it in 2021.
Now it's been a year since
Proposition B passed.
It makes it illegal to
camp in certain places.
Sit or lie on public sidewalks
or outdoors in certain areas,
and to Panhandle at night.
Disobeying Prop B can lead to
warning citations and jail time.
As a result,
tents are a less common
sight in downtown Austin.
The feedback we've gotten
from downtown businesses,
from hotels from other property owners
and tenants is has been very positive
from the from the respect that last year.
A year ago, there were people camped out.
For example, all along Cesar Chavez Blvd.
Bill
Bryce with the downtown Austin Alliance
says several factors contributed
to seeing fewer tents in the area,
which he says is great.
Yet the issue remains.
It would be unreasonable.
People to think that just
because Proposition B passed
homelessness has solved.
It may not be a problem here now,
but chances are it may
have moved somewhere else
now. The people who are unhoused once
very visible have moved further out,
which Austin Mayor Steve Adler says,
makes fixing the issue harder.
Some of the people that really
need our help are now back to to
hiding in the woods and in the
streams and in the Greenbelt.
And they are harder to find.
Chris Harris with homes,
not handcuffs says they never saw.
Prop B as a solution.
The group fought in 2019 to
repeal the old camping ban.
What criminalized people
does is it just hides it it.
It tempts to hide the issue as
much as it can, and so that makes
it harder to advocate for real
solutions and resources because
people don't see the problem.
But the cofounders of save Austin,
now the group that pushed to
get prop be approved, say the
cities not enforcing it enough.
They decreased, and now they're starting
to come back and they're starting to see
encampments come back across the city.
Matt Mackowiak and Cleopatrick say the
point of Prop B was to force the city to
rethink its approach to helping the unhoused.
The City Council is not reassuring anyone,
especially the homeless community,
that they're they're looking out for them,
continuing unsafe filthy
encampments is not helping them.
Curry says, people experiencing
homelessness are often misunderstood.
People that live in one house
have been through something,
and it takes more.
It takes more than just.
Funding it takes more
than just counseling.
It takes time.
Mayor Adler says it takes more than that.
The challenge is we don't
have homes to to put them in.
So if we go and and and break up
an encampment now without places
for people to be able to go,
all we're doing is is scattering people.
That's why Adler says the original camping
ban was reversed in the 1st place.
But if somebody just didn't have a home.
We thought it was not appropriate to put
that person in jail or to give them a ticket.
But we couldn't get the resources. He
says the prop B election started
conversations about ending the challenge
the city has dealt with for years.
Virtually everybody in this community
doesn't want anybody intense anywhere.
No one who voted for Prop B is anti homeless.
We are anti camping, particularly unsafe,
unsanitary and unregulated camping,
homelessness, overlapping with
another issue in Austin rising costs
and the lack of affordable housing.
You know, really, until we address it,
it doesn't matter if we
criminalize it or or whatnot,
we're going to continue to have
homelessness and we're going to
continue to see on house people
in our in our communities.
Chris, yeah, I got over here
and Kevin is in the field.
Oh my God where the tent you
have to hit that bottom before
you start trying to come up.
Now Curry is on his way up. Go
around all over Austin and help our
communities and places like this.
That's my goal. That is my purpose
while he helps others he's
racing against the clock with
just one year of free housing.
My short term goal is still me.
I still need to.
Like you know my own housing,
hoping to not fall back to where
so many others in the unhoused
community are hidden and unseen.
Meanwhile, city leaders,
community members and organizations
search for a solution to a long standing
problem that offers no easy answers.